Chase Log: 2009: Week 2

5/20/09, Blaine County, NE (2 Funnels)
5/23/09, Harrison County, IA (2 Tornadoes, 3 Funnels)

Details:

5/16/09

Saturday - Yuck, the forecast for severe weather is not good for this week.  It is going to be a challenging week.   We head to SD, because that is where the storms are going to be most likely to get tornadic if at all.   I will take the tour group to some of the touristy sites first.

5/17/09

Sunday - We start out in Murdo, SD and go to Mount Rushmore in the am.   Then do Crazy Horse in the afternoon.

5/18/09

Monday - Today we go from Rapid City to the Badlands.  Also we check out Wall Drugs.  Yes absolutely nothing chaseable.  We had a nice dinner at Ruby Tuesdays.

5/19/09

Tuesday - First we go to the "Corn Palace".  It was kind of interesting.  We wait all day in Mitchell, SD to see if a storm will pop up.  Nothing.  One cell fired to the west.  We got on 90 west but turned around 20 miles later when the storm quickly fell apart.  We got a room at a hotel with a water slide.  We were having fun on it all night.

5/20/09

Wednesday - We start out in Mitchell, SD.  We drive west on 90 to 183 south then to 18 and then South on 83 to Valentine.  In Valentine Cu’s start to go up in a line from near O’Neal SW to North Platte.  One of the towers was looking really good.  I had to make a decision between that storm and the storms in the dryer air in the panhandle and the slightly more moist and warmer air in central NE.  The choice was easy.  The only thing we were hoping for was the storm to be isolated.  We took 20 east to Atkinson.  By then the cu had gotten up and was rotating and developing a good rain shaft.  There were 2 updraft regions.  One south with a nice wall cloud and another NE of the rain shaft.  The one to the NE of the rain shaft was rotating but would quickly be cut off by the outflow from the rain shaft.  The storm had great structure and was very picturesque.  Other towers along the line of Cu got up and the outflows were killing each other.  We started back west because a supercell was moving east and going to move into the more moist/warmer air and intersect with the out flow boundaries.  We worked our way Northwest and were coming up Route 2 from Broken bow.  The storm was severe warned with some rotation.  It had good structure and a low hanging wall cloud.  We saw a funnel on the storm and stopped to get some video.  I then moved us closer to the storm and we watched it for a while from just south of Dunning.  With the last remnants of sunlight still getting into the storm we saw a meso intensify and lower.  Then back light by several lightening strikes we saw a funnel lower.  The lightening was not continuous so we can’t confirm if it touched down.  The lightening show was great and finally we broke off the storm and headed for a hotel and late dinner in Kearney.

5/21/09

Thursday - We drove from Kearney to Norfolk, NE.  We have a well deserved steak dinner at Whiskey Creek Steak House.

5/22/09

Friday - We waited in the afternoon for storms to pop and they didn’t.  Outflow from the morning storms kept pushing to the south and the moisture and heating just could not get back to the southern edge of the jet.  So when I figured that storms would not fire we went and played a round of Putt Putt Golf and raced go-carts.

5/23/09

Saturday - Today we start out in Norfolk again.  Higher dew points from the subtropical storm that drenched Florida this week has made it up into IA overnight.  A cluster of storms started up early and was moving across IA.  An outflow boundary lay across IA that ended in extreme western IA.  So right in that intersection will be our target today.  The sun is out and the airmass heated quickly.  This will be the closest to the polar jet that the storms will be and will have the best chance of producing something for us.  We leave Norfolk on 275 to the east and Cu start to fire early.  We head east on 91 and more Cu Fire up just to our north.  The cu glaciated and developed an anvil quickly.  The storm matured quickly and developed a wall cloud.  Just before we entered Missouri Valley IA, Bruce spotted rotating dirt”debris” being sucked up to the wall cloud.  Our first tornado of the day.  We went into Missouri Valley for a quick bathroom break and back out on 30 up to route 44.  The storm had two updrafts now and we positioned ourselves between them on a ridge.  Suddenly we had a funnel dropping from the storm on the updraft to the west. That lasted for about a minute.  Karen and Krystle saw a dust cloud again while we were looking at rope funnels on the cell to the NE.  A few minutes later Bruce says is that a flock of birds?  I said yes.  It was up under the cell to our west that was basically over us.  A closer look and you could see it was not birds and it was corn stalks and corn husks that the second tornado had picked up from a field and tossed up in the air.  That was gently coming down around us. Finally we felt some cool outflow from the storm, just 15 mph at first.  The wall clouds started to get elevated and inflow was able for a little while to still get into the storms.  Then the out flow increased and a we headed south.  Near Persia, outflow from the storm kicked up a large cloud of dust several hundred feet in the air and about a mile wide.  It must have been at the apex of the outflow(Picture in storm pics.).  We chased around on a couple of other storms.  Saw some other wall clouds but nothing as good as what we saw earlier in the day.  We headed to KC for a Longhorn Steak House chaser dinner.  Another season of Tornado/Funnel chasing in a very difficult year.  Definitely worth it though.

5/24/09

Sunday - We say our good byes and wait for next year to start up the chase again.